Parallels Desktop 8 and Mac OS X Mavericks: upgrade advisory

You must be running the latest build of Parallels Desktop 8 before upgrading to OS X Mavericks. Click Parallels Desktop Menu >Check for Гpdates to install the latest build and proceed with upgrading to Mavericks.

If you have already upgraded to Mavericks and your Parallels Desktop 8 doesn’t start, please download the latest build at http://www.parallels.com/directdownload/pd8

 

great...so I actually DIDN'T have to purchase Parallels 9 despite all the warnings you bombarded me with!
Now I'm stuck on a half baked POS that is eating up hard drives...

 

It took me over 30 minutes to even figure out how to type a post. This is not user-friendly so I hope someone will be able to read my post and offer help/direction. I have Parallels Desktop 8 for Mac and running OS X. That's all I know. Inside my parallels is Windows 7 with Microsoft Office, Quicken, and some other programs that won't run on a Mac.

Excel printed a document, but Word is freaking out. Each time I open a saved document, it is already in Read-Only format even though it was not saved that way. Then if i try to re-save to edit, it locks up when I make any changes that disrupts its "process" or something. i.e. I change a font, and then the program locks up. It appears that Parallels is the problem, but I can't figure it out since I am NOT a techie person. I uninstalled and reinstalled Parallels using phone support (which no salesperson ever told me was only 30 days), then after about 5 months my MacBook Pro crashed (due to hard drive and RAM fail according to Apple). I lost all my files because they weren't backed up to an external (I thought Macs didn't crash - I was a lifelong PC user). Now I'm starting over, re-installed Parallels, Windows, and all the other programs.

Short of paying someone who may or may not know what they are doing, how do I go about deciding whether Parallels is the cause of my grief and whether to get rid of it and use Boot Camp instead?

This is a majorly overwhelming crisis, upon all the other crisis' going on for me right now. Please send kind help. Thank you.

 

I know this is not the right thread to be posting to but I can't find a more appropriate one.
I have on my Mac Parallels 3.0 but am not using OS X 10.9 so I cannot open the Parallels app in order to uninstall Parallels from my computer. I no longer have A Windows APP on my MAC. Since I have an old product, I can't utilize Chat to ask this question. What do you suggest I do to install the Parallels app? Thanks for your help.